TY - JOUR
AU - Jackson,C. Kirabo
TI - Teacher Quality at the High-School Level: The Importance of Accounting for Tracks
JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL - No. 17722
PY - 2012
Y2 - January 2012
DO - 10.3386/w17722
UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17722
L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17722.pdf
N1 - Author contact info:
C. Kirabo Jackson
Northwestern University
School of Education and Social Policy
2040 Sheridan Road
Evanston, IL 60208
Tel: 847/467-1803
E-Mail: kirabo-jackson@northwestern.edu
AB - Unlike in elementary school, high-school teacher effects may be confounded with both selection to tracks and unobserved track-level treatments. I document sizable confounding track effects, and show that traditional tests for the existence of teacher effects are likely biased. After accounting for these biases, high-school algebra and English teachers have much smaller test-score effects than found in previous studies. Moreover, unlike in elementary school, value-added estimates are weak predictors of teachers' future performance. Results indicate that either (a) teachers are less influential in high school than in elementary school, or (b) test scores are a poor metric to measure teacher quality at the high-school level.
ER -